Secrets and Snippets
by ImplodingBubbles
Summary: How didn't anyone realize what was happening to her? Did they not care? Or is the truth just too horrible to acnowledge sometimes, even when it stares you in the eyes? Warning: Rape, Non-con


This story veers from canon a lot. Hermione does not get petrified, it has spells that are completely made up, and Ginny is not the one in the Chamber of Secrets. I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors, but I also don't really care. I know I didn't make any serious mistakes.

Warnings: An adult having non-consensual sex with a minor

* * *

"Detention with Lockhart again?" Ron asked Ginny, grinning, "I wonder when that git'll realize that his detentions aren't even a punishment to the female species"

Hermione shot him a dirty look, though she was red to the tips of her ears and Ginny shot up, gathering her books hastily and leaving the library.

"What's with her?" the red-head rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the chessboard. "Ah, got your rook Harry!"

* * *

Myrtle liked the Weasley girl. It was mid-September when the red-head had started visiting. At that time, she'd just kind of sit there, crying a little bit some days, talking to Myrtle when she finished. Ginny would always talk about some boy. In the beginning, she'd tell Myrtle that he seemed to like her. He touched her arms a lot and spoke to her kindly. The ghost would listen; talk to Ginny in return. Once she told the young girl how she'd died and how scary it had been, other times she would talk about Bart; a boy that she'd kissed when she was a first year. She'd ignore the fact that Ginny didn't really talk back much. Sometimes Ginny would cry a lot, even though this boy told her that he liked her. The day that they kissed for the first time, late October, she'd seemed confused. She'd asked Myrtle if it was okay to like someone older than her. Once she found an interesting book, but it talked back to her and that seemed to scare the younger girl. She didn't want it telling people her secrets so she threw it away. Some other girl must have found it, because it was gone the next day. Eventually Ginny stopped talking. She'd just come in and cry while Myrtle tried to comfort her. She stopped coming by all together around Christmas.

* * *

Ron opened his gift from Ginny, staring at it in shock. Wow… new robes. They were very beautiful robes too; raven black with the Gryffindor emblem on them. He never asked her where she got the money, half afraid that Harry had given it to her. He thanked her for it though, telling her that she was the best sister he could have gotten. For some reason she got real emotional when he wore them for the first time.

* * *

Harry couldn't stay asleep. The fight with the basilisk had left him wired as opposed to draining him as it should have. Maybe it was one of the lingering effects of phoenix tears. It was a shoddy effect. His mind was exhausted and his body refused to rest. Every cell felt as if it was vibrating and every sense felt heightened. If Harry had ever been allowed coffee when he was at the Dursley's, the sensation would have been familiar. His glasses had fallen behind the borough during the night, yet even without them he was able to see fairly well if he squinted; and so he let them be, not wanting to wake up Ron who had fallen right asleep much earlier. He, Ron, and Hermione had been through a lot in the past two days. They'd rescued that Hufflepuff from the Chamber of Secrets; only to find out that she was Ginny's friend. Helga… that was her name. She'd left the school yesterday, unable to handle the guilt of opening the Chamber.

Harry wandered out into the commons for a short walk, hoping that it would calm him down a bit. That's when he heard a girl crying. It didn't take him very long to figure out where the sound was coming from. The common room wasn't very large and he soon spotted a small figure huddled up in a Gryffindor quilt. Only the figure's head was visible and from far away he could see that the girl had long red hair and a very small face. It could have been anyone, but red hair… a Gryffindor, and up so late. He felt bad for Ginny really; her only friend had left her alone here.

Harry rubbed his eyes and squinted. "Ginny?" He hesitantly stepped forward. "Hey Ginny… are you okay? Do you need me to get Professor McGonagall? She wouldn't blame you… after all that's happened." Her crying intensified and Harry looked around anxiously. He didn't know how to handle this. Should he go get the professor, or leave Ginny alone? Sometimes crying was the best option after all. Hermione would know, but the girl's dormitory was off limits. He remembered the books that Hermione had enchanted and rushed back to his room, grabbing Wizarding throughout the Ages and his wand. "Clarisonous!" He whispered, touching his wand to the heavy book.

When he got back to the common room Hermione was there, her eyes heavy with sleep and her hair bushier than normal. Not unlike Ron, she'd fallen asleep in her school robes and as a result they were wrinkled and her tie was sideways.

"Where's Ron? Why did you wake me up? We have to un-enchant those books; the noise is really loud now. Lucky for you Lavender and Parvati went home. What's going on?" She looked around and looked back at Harry in confusion.

"I thought you'd deal with it better… since you're a girl and everything."

She yelped in alarm as he grabbed her wrist and all but dragged her to the chair that Ginny was sitting on. Upon seeing the younger girl she sat down next on the corner of the chair and motioned for Harry to go back to his room, her eyebrows drawn together and her lips forming a slight frown. The younger girl wasn't even taking up half the chair. The circles under her eyes looked like bruises and her face had lost its rounded look. It was as if she hadn't eaten at all in quite a while. Hermione was sure that is she pulled away the blanket; the rest of the first year's body would be smaller than it had been nearly a month ago. "Ginny… Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. J-just a nightmare is all." Another silent sob wracked her body. "It's no big deal, just a night-" she stopped talking as the look on older girl's face turned from one of concern to one of a terrifyingly forced calmness.

"Who did that to you?" Her tone matched her expression in every way possible.

What was she…? Ginny realized that the quilt had slipped down, revealing a multitude of browning bruises on her neck. She yanked it back up to her chin but it was too late. "No one," she whispered, holding the fabric tightly.

Before Ginny could stop her, Hermione had yanked the cover away from her.

To her horror, the younger girl's pajama shirt rode up slightly, revealing bruises that ranged from the same color as the ones on her neck to a sickly greenish-yellow. Her sleeves weren't nearly long enough to hide the marks of a similar color and the small half-moon shaped scabs and cuts on both of her wrists. It was clear that none of these marks were new. The freshest were nearly a week old. Yet it was also clear that this wasn't an isolated attack, as some of them had been inflicted well over a week ago.

"I was attacked by some Slytherins in the halls." Ginny came up with this excuse far too quickly.

"Only once?" The brunette tried to appear calmer, yet when Ginny shook her head yes, she lost all remnants of calamity. "You're lying to me," she snapped, "I'm not stupid and you're clearly lying to me." She stood up quickly, straightened her tie, and stormed into the boy's dormitory.

A few minutes later, a concerned Harry and disgruntled Ron had joined Hermione in front of the armchair.

"Show them what happened to you," Hermione ordered and at Ginny's clear reluctance, she added, "Or I will."

"It's no big deal… really," the first year murmured quietly, pushing away the quilt. After a moment of terrifying silence, she pulled the quilt back up. The silence in the time between that and what happened next was so thick with tension that it could have been cut with a knife.

"_What the hell_?" Ron's face was as red as his hair. "What bastard attacked my sister? I swear I'll kill him! He'll be right up in St. Mungo's with Lockhart!" He laughed bitterly. "Hey Harry, it'll be the second person we send to the hospital, except he'll be worse. He'll be so much worse." He grinned at Hermione, "You know some wicked painful spells, right? Just tell us who did it Ginny, okay?"

"Ron! Stop it! Can't you see you're upsetting her?" Hermione's gestured towards the other girl whose eyes had filled with tears at the beginning of his rant and now they were overflowing onto the quilt.

Ginny however, spoke up, her voice small and frail. "It's okay Ron. You already took care of him, right? Lockhart's gone and he doesn't even remember."

It was silent for a minute. "Ginny?" Hermione's face had paled. "What did he do?"

"I- during detention's he'd… he said I was pretty you know? He said I was special. He gave me signed copies of his books to send mum and money to buy new robes for you Ron. I-I took them too. So I deserv… I was asking for it, right?" She peeled off her thumbnail, not even noticing that it was bleeding. "At first I didn't even mind that much. It was just… just kissing. And I said he was cute, right?" She looked up at the horrified trio, wiping away her tears. She knew that she should stop talking now, but her voice, which was now smaller and so much faster, wouldn't go away. "I said he was cute and all of the girls think he's cute. I was lucky really, right Hermione? I got to kiss the famous Lockhart." She giggled, but it was a weak and broken sound. "I got to kiss… and… I got to… I didn't want to though. But he wouldn't listen. He just- he just h-hurt me and he wouldn't stop. I begged him, I called out for you Ron but you never heard me. And he hit me and-" Her voice trailed off and she went quiet, refusing to look at either of the three. Now they would yell at her and they would hate her. She'd deserved everything and she knew it. She'd taken his gifts even after he ruined her. She took his gifts and she threw them out the window, off of the astronomy tower. She'd almost thrown herself off too. She really should have.

Hermione was the first one to speak up, though her focus was directed at anything but the other girl. In hindsight it was obvious, she thought. Lockhart had always spoken too kindly to Ginny, touched her arm a bit too much, looked at all the wrong parts of her body. Yet Hermione had passed it off as being friendly to a scared new first year; she'd held him in too high of esteem and now her friend's sister was paying the price for it. "Why didn't you tell anyone Ginny? There are laws about that sort of thing in the Muggle world and I reckon there must be some here too. Someone could have helped you."

"He… he told me no one would believe me." She lowered her eyes to the ground and crossed her arms tightly across her chest. "I'm just… I'm just an _ugly little g-girl_" her voice broke "And Dumbledore h-hired him." At this point Ginny was sobbing, her small body shaking with the effort to stop.

Neither Hermione nor Harry knew what to say in response to that. They were twelve. No one had ever given them advice on how to handle a broken eleven year old. And broken she was; at this point the girl across from the trio was hugging her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth, her face buried in her arms. With the quilt wrapped tightly around her body, she resembled nothing more than a whimpering lump with a head, practically disappearing into the overstuffed chair.

Ron however, was livid. "Dumbledore? Dumbledore hired a bloke with fucking _Voldemort_ on the back of his head and you thought he would be clever enough not to hire a pervert! You could have told _us_ Ginny! We would have killed the bastard right off, not gotten him sent off to Mungo's!"

"What should we be doing?" Hermione finally whispered to Harry, biting down hard on her lower lip

"I reckon we should get Dumbledore." He looked at his still ranting best friend, who now was muttering something about how he'd go to Azkaban for the Killing Curse, but it was worth it really. And he seemed to mean every word.

Ron turned on the two quickly. "You reckon we should get _Dumbledore_?" His fists were balled up tightly as he took a step towards them. "He's the one who caused this! He's a bloody idiot! He'll probably tell us that he's _sorry _and that he'll _make sure it won't happen again". _His tone was taunting and cruel_ "_Well we already did that didn't we? And what good did it do my sister? _None. _ So we can't do anything! We're hopeless Harry and it's all your precious _Dumbledore's_ fault!" At this, he stormed away, only stopping to yell 'Snogglewarts' at the Fat Lady before leaving the common room all together.

Other than the quiet crackling of the firewood, the last sounds heard by anybody in the Gryffindor commons that night were the agitated huff of the Fat Lady and the faint crying of Ginny Weasley.


End file.
